Show Highway Funds Sufficient For Utah's Big Program Utah should have sufficient suffice lent Jent state highway revenue over the next eight years 1 to meet state matching re on Federal aid highway projects 2 to provide pro vide for administrative operating oper opera and maintenance needs of the State Highway Department Depart ment and 3 to permit a modest Improvement program on state non-Federal non aid road projects This conclusion was reached reach ed cd by Utah Foundation the private governmental research organization after a comprehensive comprehensive compre compre- pensive study of highway finance fine fin ante ance In Utah According to the Von ton state high way revenues exclusive of Fe Fee Federal deral aid over the eight year period 1964 through 1971 will total about million Approximately Ap proximately 72 million of this sum will be needed to match Federal highway grants while million will be required re for tor state operating and once ance outlays leaving about 20 million that can be ded on strictly state nonFederal non none Federal aid highway con Foundation analysts point out that this estimated expenditure total for tor state nonFederal non none Federal aid road construction averages about 25 million per year During the past five lIve years ears such construction has averaged 48 million millon per year ar Tills This pinch on state non nonFederal non Federal aid highway construction will be partial particularly acute during the next two years when the state must use most of ot Its Us available avail able state highway revenue revenue to match a backlog of Federal Feder al aid money in addition to provide for lor other highway needs The study observes that Utah has either completed placed under contract or programmed pro crammed substantially all aU In Interstate In road projects for tor which Federal funds have been made available Despite this fact Utah ranks relatively relatively relatively rela rela- low among the respective respective tive states In the proportion of Interstate mileage actually In use Major reason for lor this anomalous anomalous ano situation according to the Foundation report is that 1 Utah only recently has received Federal aid funds for tor a substantial amount of Interstate road mileage which was subsequently added to i the system 2 Utah has concentrated con cone Its Interstate construction con cone largely In the heavy heavy hea vy traffic urban areas where costs are high and progress i islow If I. slow 3 In many of the other other oth er states existing toll ro roads ds and end freeways were Incorporated atM algid Into the Interstate system tern tem thus adding to their in interstate Interstate In completed total and 4 Utah at the outset had to take time to extensively reorganize re reorganize organize and expand the highway high way department in order to meet the needs of a vastly enlarged highway program The study shows that on cent of the miles mItes of des des- March 31 1964 only per Interstate highways in Utah had been completed and were open to traffic traute Nationally Nationally Na about per cent of the 41 thousand miles mItes of the designated interstate system tern tem was open to traffic |